ENERGY SAVERS AND FLOURESCENT TUBES (CFLs) CONTAIN DEADLY DANGEROUS POISONOUS !
PROF WAQAR HUSSAIN
Energy Savers and Florescent Tubes (compact fluorescent light bulbs CFLs) use dramatically less energy than incandescent bulbs .So they are used abundantly all over the world including Pakistan .Ironically, we never thought of health hazard connected with their use especially when they are broken or get out of order ,thus putting life under threat.
Toxins in Energy Saver and Fluorescent Tube
They contain inner -coating of beryllium compounds and have a small amount of mercury as light giving medium.Both these compounds are poisonous. Their effect on human health becomes more dangerous when these bulbs or tubes are broken carelessly without adopting effective protective measures.
So, whenever energy saver or fluorescent tube is broken; there are looming fear of triplet threat.
Physical injury due to cullet( broken glass splinters). if such bulb or tube are broken in our homes or in our working place; care should be taken not to handle the shards with bare hands so as to avoid a cutting through which powder may be admitted to the blood stream.
Beryllium intoxication
Some People acquire ill health shortly after exposure, while others may develop health issues many years after exposure. Once a person has been exposed to beryllium, he has a lifelong risk of developing disease.
Beryllium usually affects the respiratory system, although it can affect other parts of the body as well. Listed below are different types of illnesses associated with beryllium.
1) Rarely get Lung cancer.A chronic scarring lung disorder where scarring prevents oxygen from moving freely from the lungs to the blood.Exposure to beryllium can affect the lungs or skin. However, not everyone will develop health effects from beryllium exposure.
2) A pneumonia-like illness that follows exposure to high levels (50-100 micro-grams/cubic meter) of beryllium.
3) Allergic reaction
4) Dermatitis (skin disease)
People who work closely with beryllium as part of their employment have the greatest risk of developing health effects from beryllium. However, people who have had only infrequent exposure to beryllium may still develop health effects. Once a person has been exposed to beryllium, they have a lifelong risk of developing disease even if exposure stops.
Mercury Intoxication
According to a research a broken florescent tube has 197 to 451 microgram of mercury per cubic metre(Hg micro g/m3 ) checked by Mercury Vapour Analyzers in 10 different experiments.However, energy saver has too high level to read in 10 experiments.so whenever, energy saver or tube is broken, a high care is required to dispose of broken glass.
As some fraction of the mercury will evaporate into the air. How much? One of study revealed fluorescent tube evaporate only 17 to 40 percent of the mercury . The rest remained stuck inside the tube. Roughly one-third of the mercury evaporate in the first eight hours after the breakage; the rest seeped out slowly over time.
The amount of mercury in energy saver is very small to the tune of 4-5 milligrams. This is almost one thousand times less than what was in mercury thermometers! So, let’s assume that what happens with CFLs is comparable to what happens with tubular fluorescent. If a bulb breaks, only 0.67 milligrams of mercury (one-third of 40 percent of 5 milligrams) might become airborne in the room during the first eight hours, and only a fraction of that would be breathed in. The tiny amount of mercury you’re exposed to when breaking a CFL is extremely unlikely to cause any ill effects, noticeable or otherwise. But how do you minimize even this tiny amount of risk
HOW TO DISPOSE OFF BROKEN BULBS OR TUBES
1) Remove children and elders from the room.
2) Increase the ventilation in the room by opening windows and doors.
3) Then use cards or stiff paper to pick up the broken pieces of glass and any visible mercury. Don’t use your bare hands, and don’t use a vacuum cleaner ;don't brush or broom because this can disperse the mercury more widely.
4) Once you’ve picked the big pieces, use sticky tape or dough to get up smaller pieces of glass and white dust.
5) To be further safe, stay out of the area for a few hours to let remaining mercury disperse.
6) Clean the area with wet cloth to remove any tiny glass, white dust and mercury remains.
7) Do all the cleaning operation while wearing gloves or put on shopping bag on hands.
So, what does mercury poisoning do to you ? The symptoms are primarily neurological. A low level exposure (like if you broke a dozen CFLs in your house every day for a couple of weeks) would cause insidious symptoms – fatigue, memory problems, difficulty concentrating, and perhaps some mild clumsiness. Higher exposures could give tremors, and mood or emotional disturbances. But this is never going to happen from dropping one saver or tube !
We can understand real mechanism of mercury intoxication as we have metabolic machinery called enzyme. Enzymes are like little machines that bind things together and take things apart as mason put bricks in right manner and build wall, room and variety of structures.Similarly proteins build variety of compounds; apart from building protein, like a mason who razes a structure when not needed; same do the proteins. If you want to build hormone, how ? little machine will do that they put all the molecule together in right way and build the hormones. For example, if you want to “think” you have to build neurotransmitter ! how you will do that ? Answer is ;enzyme will do that. Enzyme will stick molecule together to build neurotransmitter. A toxin like mercury can shut down these enzymes;have an analogy to put ropes around arm,legs and a body of a mason and expect from him to build a structures; that is a mere scoffing.so, when you need to build that neurotransmitter, you cannot do so as a result your mind will not work well. Mind will not be as sharper as should be. If you want to build hormones which is a messenger molecule, it is a part of your body's communication system, Hormones goes around the cells to tell them; what to do! If you are unable to build the hormones then your body will become harmonically imbalance, and net result is malfunction.Ironically harmonic imbalance is epidemic in USA and man y other countries.
If you want to build “antibody” - an army of your body; a defence system of your body that protect your body from diseases by killing virus, bacteria and other pathogens.Antibodies are proteins and mercury poison will tied them up thus exposing your body towards infections. Just one toxin can screw of a lot of things in your body because enzyme are performing multifarious functions all over you body.So a great caution is required in dealing with mercury.
HOW TO DISPOSE OFF OUT OF ORDER BULBS AND TUBES
When bulb and tubes go out of order. Don't through in dust bin rather wrap them in plastic bags or shopper and seal them before placing them in your regular trash.Despite of your best efforts the bulbs will end up breaking in a landfill,causing problem but at much lesser level.
After knowing the toxic of beryllium, and especially mercury; highly hoped that you will not allow enemy to dismantle your body.Stay blessed, dear humans !
.jpg)
